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Comcast CEO Brian Roberts pulled down $31M last year. If he opened up his channels to others he'd lose subscribers and thus a pay cut. Folks like Brian Roberts are what is wrong with our society today. Profit and compensation are fine. When it goes to ridiculous levels and the common man takes it upside down, then well, its a problem. It's GREED pure and simple. Frankly, had he not been on the coat-tails of his father he'd probably be pumping gas right now. But he is WHO he is because of GREED and his father.

Problem is that even if they approve the Online Streaming sale, it will only be for those areas not served by Comcast.
This will mean that many of the major Metro areas such as Portland and Suburbs would by definition be excluded

The Blazers signed a contract and took the money and ran.
It is too easy for them to play the injured party role.
It is hard to believe that Directv can sign all these other RSNs and somehow not be able to reach an agreement with CSNW. You have to think that the deal offered by the local Comcast just doesn't fly
Maybe with the unique situation, a single Pro Sports team, in a fairly large market, influences the negotiations, with Comcast feeling they have a monopoly.
Bottom line, it sucks.
Michael

Even more so than with CSN Philly, I'm quite surprised Comcast has gotten away with this for so long.

Portland being a one horse town where all you really have for pro sports are the Blazers, the anger and outcry from the fans and Blazers' owner and management against Comcast should be enormous by now.

Where is the "Blazermania" revolt to exert an overwhelming pressure on Comcast to open up and deal?

To their credit, in spite of speculation by some they might, turns out TWC didn't dare try that for the Lakers and have quickly bought all carriers (except for Dish right now ) on board.

I believe I remember reading at one point in time that the Blazers had sued Comcast over this and it is now waiting to be heard in the courts, that is why they haven't been saying much anymore (best not to comment on pending court cases). Of course that has been a while back, so my info might be outdated/improperly recalled.

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."
-by Jack Handy

I believe I remember reading at one point in time that the Blazers had sued Comcast over this and it is now waiting to be heard in the courts, that is why they haven't been saying much anymore (best not to comment on pending court cases). Of course that has been a while back, so my info might be outdated/improperly recalled.

Blazers never sued Comcast, they looked at their legal alternatives.

Problem is that the contract required a certain # of households and with the Supersonics moving out, NBA gave Seattle territory to the Blazers, and Comcast added the channel to their Seattle systems and met the # of households requirement in the contract. End of discussion, there isn't anything they can do.

Ironically Directv owned Root Sports reportedly charges more per viewer than what Comcast has asked for. Really both competing channels have part-time content - Comcast has the Blazers and Root has the Mariners. Neither has much else beyond that.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts pulled down $31M last year. If he opened up his channels to others he'd lose subscribers and thus a pay cut. Folks like Brian Roberts are what is wrong with our society today. Profit and compensation are fine. When it goes to ridiculous levels and the common man takes it upside down, then well, its a problem. It's GREED pure and simple. Frankly, had he not been on the coat-tails of his father he'd probably be pumping gas right now. But he is WHO he is because of GREED and his father.

Can you please tell me which evil CEO I am supposed to blame here? I thought you said this was all greedy Mike White's fault in the Lakers thread?

... Ironically Directv owned Root Sports reportedly charges more per viewer than what Comcast has asked for. Really both competing channels have part-time content - Comcast has the Blazers and Root has the Mariners. Neither has much else beyond that.

Wow ... you would think with a situation like that they could reach some kind of mutual agreement for DIRECTV to carry CSN NW in exchange for Comcast to carry Root Sports NW on their systems in the NW to help equalize and substantially lower carriage fees for both sides.

Can you please tell me which evil CEO I am supposed to blame here? I thought you said this was all greedy Mike White's fault in the Lakers thread?

All of the above. It's not one sided. The whole TV industry is saturated with greed and getting a better deal than the other guy, which keeps pushing costs to all of us up....

And what I said in the Laker thread is that Mike White is disingenuous. He complains of rising sports content costs for a distributor, forgetting that he owns the Root channels at the same time. If he concerned about sports channels on a sports tier then he needs to lead by example first.

Wow ... you would think with a situation like that they could reach some kind of mutual agreement for DIRECTV to carry CSN NW in exchange for Comcast to carry Root Sports NW on their systems in the NW to help equalize and substantially lower carriage fees for both sides.

Perhaps an idealistic oversimplification I guess though ...

Well reasonable people could come up with a reasonable deal. I have no doubt that Comcast is asking too much for the channel. I have no doubt that Directv does not want competion for it's 100% owned sub, Root Sports. By refusing to show the competition, the competitions ability to drive costs up is limited.

Well reasonable people could come up with a reasonable deal. I have no doubt that Comcast is asking too much for the channel. I have no doubt that Directv does not want competion for it's 100% owned sub, Root Sports. By refusing to show the competition, the competitions ability to drive costs up is limited.

This is the problem whether the TV distributors own the channel.

Doesn't Comcast carry root? Seems it does.

Explain why altitude is on if direct doesn't want to show the competition.

Besides, a provider wants to say they have it all. Keeping channels from others makes sense. Keeping a channel off your system does not. In the first, you get customers the competition doesn't. In the second, you can only lose.

Explain why altitude is on if direct doesn't want to show the competition.

Besides, a provider wants to say they have it all. Keeping channels from others makes sense. Keeping a channel off your system does not. In the first, you get customers the competition doesn't. In the second, you can only lose.

So, what is your logic?

You know TonyD79, I do not know much about Altitude, so I am not the best person for that analysis. If you want to research that, which includes understanding the market, talking to the teams, the news and columnists in the market, the cable/satellite providers in the market, go for it. It's way beyond what Google can provide you. I know that's tough for you - thinking outside of a computer and understanding demographics, marketing, accounting, and money. If you want to know about Altitude then you will need to do your own footwork.

You also need to go back into history and understand the Blazers and the whole programming fiasco it's had for much longer than CSN and Root/FSN. Go back to the Action Sports Channel and follow that dialogue as well. Go back to the Blazer Vision PPV days and follow that as well. Sorry, TonyD79, Google is not going to provide you all this history and how things built to today.

As for a provider wanting to say it has it all, really? Take a look around, who has it all? There is not one single provider with it "all."

You need to stop viewing things from a consumer perspective and instead from a TV distributor/channel owner's perspective. This is where you are so flawed in your understanding and analysis.

By restricting access of it's competitors, Directv: (1) has less competition for Root, (2) keeps costs lower because it's harder for a competitor to bid up the market if his access to the consumers is lacking, (3) it's much harder to take a channel off a system than it is to add a new one, (4) CSN has a weaker foothold in Seattle than it does in Portand - Root is still #1 in the Seattle viewer's eye...and Seattle has about 2 1/2 times the number of households than Oregon does.

The reality is that now with Pac 12 gone completely there is not enough local content in the Pacific Northwest to satisfy two channels. Long term, one needs to go for anyone to make any real money. We have the NBA Trail Blazers and the MLB Mariners, that's basically it. There is some Big Sky football and basketball mixed in there, but that draws very little eyeballs to the games. We have a Big Sky team in Portland State and Eastern Washington in Spokane area. Neither are huge draws and neither is in Seattle, the largest market in the footprint. There are two MLS soccer teams, Portland and Seattle; while they are fun, reality says they are niche sports and get only a fraction of the viewership the Mariners or the Blazers get.

Back in Root NW's heydays ala FSN NW, we had the plus channel activated quite often. Simply put there was just too much content for one channel. There was the Supersonics as well. There was so much content that FSN-NW was unable to carry, University of Oregon pulled out and went with CSN-NW for it's owned games. So CSN-NW had a good starting baseline - Blazers and UofO sports to work with. They imported Vancouver NHL as well, something we didn't have in this market; FSN-NW probably didn't import it because they already had so much content.

TonyD79, believe whatever you want. Clearly you do not understand marketing and demographics. It's not about total viewers. It's about the viewers that spend money. You can have 20M customers and not make money. You can have 15M viewers and make more money. As I stated before, this is not a technology issue, which surely you know about. This is about finding the right mix of customer and being able to offer him a product and make money on it.

You also need to consider the legacies channels and how Comcast acquired them from various other providers with existing contracts and relationships in place. It's always easier to renew an existing contract than it is to start a new channel. Back in the day TCI cable - way before Comcast and ATT owned it, TCI cable was a local run outfit - and of course it will carry local content. Comcast inherited those relationships and they continue to this day. Maybe that's what occurred in Denver, I do not know. Go find out yourself.

You know TonyD79, I do not know much about Altitude, so I am not the best person for that analysis. If you want to research that, which includes understanding the market, talking to the teams, the news and columnists in the market, the cable/satellite providers in the market, go for it. It's way beyond what Google can provide you. I know that's tough for you - thinking outside of a computer and understanding demographics, marketing, accounting, and money. If you want to know about Altitude then you will need to do your own footwork.

You also need to go back into history and understand the Blazers and the whole programming fiasco it's had for much longer than CSN and Root/FSN. Go back to the Action Sports Channel and follow that dialogue as well. Go back to the Blazer Vision PPV days and follow that as well. Sorry, TonyD79, Google is not going to provide you all this history and how things built to today.

As for a provider wanting to say it has it all, really? Take a look around, who has it all? There is not one single provider with it "all."

You need to stop viewing things from a consumer perspective and instead from a TV distributor/channel owner's perspective. This is where you are so flawed in your understanding and analysis.

By restricting access of it's competitors, Directv: (1) has less competition for Root, (2) keeps costs lower because it's harder for a competitor to bid up the market if his access to the consumers is lacking, (3) it's much harder to take a channel off a system than it is to add a new one, (4) CSN has a weaker foothold in Seattle than it does in Portand - Root is still #1 in the Seattle viewer's eye...and Seattle has about 2 1/2 times the number of households than Oregon does.

The reality is that now with Pac 12 gone completely there is not enough local content in the Pacific Northwest to satisfy two channels. Long term, one needs to go for anyone to make any real money. We have the NBA Trail Blazers and the MLB Mariners, that's basically it. There is some Big Sky football and basketball mixed in there, but that draws very little eyeballs to the games. We have a Big Sky team in Portland State and Eastern Washington in Spokane area. Neither are huge draws and neither is in Seattle, the largest market in the footprint. There are two MLS soccer teams, Portland and Seattle; while they are fun, reality says they are niche sports and get only a fraction of the viewership the Mariners or the Blazers get.

Back in Root NW's heydays ala FSN NW, we had the plus channel activated quite often. Simply put there was just too much content for one channel. There was the Supersonics as well. There was so much content that FSN-NW was unable to carry, University of Oregon pulled out and went with CSN-NW for it's owned games. So CSN-NW had a good starting baseline - Blazers and UofO sports to work with. They imported Vancouver NHL as well, something we didn't have in this market; FSN-NW probably didn't import it because they already had so much content.

TonyD79, believe whatever you want. Clearly you do not understand marketing and demographics. It's not about total viewers. It's about the viewers that spend money. You can have 20M customers and not make money. You can have 15M viewers and make more money. As I stated before, this is not a technology issue, which surely you know about. This is about finding the right mix of customer and being able to offer him a product and make money on it.

In other words, don't bother me with something that doesn't support my point. All you say is true for Denver but you just ignore it because you have to live it to understand it. Nice argument but so flawed it is ridiculous.

You continue to claim what I don't know. That is a bit of a personal attack. And incorrect.

I give up on reason with you. You decide that things that happened years ago motivate how a company thinks it can make money today.

As for Root. Directv treats then like they are nothing. They don't even brand them together. Nothing on Root indicates they are affiliated with directv. If the property is valuable and you want it to drive sales of your overall product, you a) don't allow it on the competitors system although it is and identify it as yours a la Comcast sportsnet.

If they showed one inclination of adding a new channel somewhere, I'd buy that they care that much.

And maybe, just maybe, as everyone does other than you, they see Seattle and Portland as two different markets. Portland is a small one.

Finally, you need eyeballs to grow a channel? Really? You mean csn can't bid for mariners games until they have eyeballs? Better tell Time Warner.

Keeping CSN off directv has no real benefit to directv other than lowering costs. Gee, when TWC lowered its cost, it wound up on directv. Hmmm.

TonyD79, you seem so hot and bothered by the fact that I stated I do not know the Altitude issues and state that I am not the person for that discussion? Get real, will you?

How many times are you going to "give up" on me? You say it over and over again. How about following up on that? You are the one that keeps interjecting things, not me. You are the one that jumped on the bandwagon about the rates of CSN and Root, only to have it pointed out that there is a difference between CSN-Washington (as in DC) as opposed to CSN-NW (which is primarily Washington state and Oregon). So please give up on me and go away. Save us both...you from more false assumptions and conclusions and me from explaining marketing and demographics to you. We will never see eye to eye and that is fine with me.

And to your comment about Seattle and Portland being different market....maybe they are...but so what? that is irrelevant because the programmers see them as one market and unless you or I have the power to change that it is completely irrelevant to somehow mix that whole thing into the discussion. Since Root Sports NW and CSN-NW both market to Oregon and Washington and combine our content into one channel it makes no sense to really inject that.

In other words, don't bother me with something that doesn't support my point. All you say is true for Denver but you just ignore it because you have to live it to understand it. Nice argument but so flawed it is ridiculous.

You continue to claim what I don't know. That is a bit of a personal attack. And incorrect.

I give up on reason with you. You decide that things that happened years ago motivate how a company thinks it can make money today.

As for Root. Directv treats then like they are nothing. They don't even brand them together. Nothing on Root indicates they are affiliated with directv. If the property is valuable and you want it to drive sales of your overall product, you a) don't allow it on the competitors system although it is and identify it as yours a la Comcast sportsnet.

If they showed one inclination of adding a new channel somewhere, I'd buy that they care that much.

And maybe, just maybe, as everyone does other than you, they see Seattle and Portland as two different markets. Portland is a small one.

Finally, you need eyeballs to grow a channel? Really? You mean csn can't bid for mariners games until they have eyeballs? Better tell Time Warner.

Keeping CSN off directv has no real benefit to directv other than lowering costs. Gee, when TWC lowered its cost, it wound up on directv. Hmmm.